Martin Anding, a Ron Paul partisan from Santa Cruz, point out to me that I had recently questioned Congressman’s Paul statement to the effect that he received more contributions from the military than any other Presidential candidate. I did, and, once more, I must eat humble pie … after a fashion. Or maybe not. You decide.

This source, the Army Times, is, I think, a generally trustworthy periodical with only limited resources with which to check the information it receives.

The article in the Army Times confirms that Congressman Paul ‘s listed, recorded contributions from armed forces entities have been to-date much more numerous that those going to other candidates. The article states that Paul received 1405 separate donations against Mitt Romney only 55 (that’s: fifty-five).

Now, there are currently 1,45 million active personnel in the armed forces plus an equal number of reservists. I will ignore the latter because the story does not say if they are counted as potential political contributors. However, the story specifies that military dependents are included among the contributors and so are civilian employees of the military. I would be surprised if dependents and civilian employees together did not jack up the number to two million or so.

With these reasonable and moderate adjustments, here is a summary of what I learned from the article in Army Times: I am expected to believe that the proportion of military donations to two Republican candidates to the relevant population is like this:

2,000,000 members

1,405 contributions for Ron Paul

55 contributions to Mitt Romney

or, alternatively, that the donation figures are foolish for reasons I need not fathom to dismiss them outright.

For the record, I would bet that a proper count would show that the number of separate donations to Ron Paul originating in all branches of the active military and dependents and civilian employees, is much larger than 1,405.

Same for the number in favor of Romney. This information is worse than no information. It’s not a rare event. Journalistic neutrality has its limits. Press organs should not publish absurd information without comment.

This is just another case where Ron Paul and his staff are not paying attention to what he says or displaying an extraordinary lack of understanding of simple numbers. I suspect they do this because his rivals dismiss him while they think many of his supporters will believe just about anything he says.

15 Responses to Members of Military Swarm Over Ron Paul’s Campaign With Checks!

Alas, I think you should accept the pie from Mr. Anding and have some dessert. If you go to opensecrets.com and look at the numbers for Dr. Paul, you’ll see his top 3 donors as US Army, US Navy, and Us Air Force. You won’t see that for anyone else.

Ron Paul may well be the recipient of more military donations than others.I wouldn’t know one way or the other. The source Anding gave me says he is and the numbers it gives are patently absurd because they are too low. And if they are correct, they are trivial.

Correctness test: Did Mitt Romney only receive 55 donations from the military? How about ten times more, 550? Please, answer in your own mind.

The alternative you propose is worse. On an annual basis, the main three contributors of smiles in my life are: Mary, Jane, and Louise. Here is how they stacked up last year, over twelve months, in terms of the smiles they gave me:

Louise (89) 4
Mary 2
Jane 1
Every other woman in the world 0

I really shouldn’t have to teach you this, Professor but thanks for the teaching opportunity anyway.

I have problems similar to yours in trying to understand these numbers. They make zero sense. Why are the number of donations so small? Why do so many of them go to Obama who comes in second to Paul? And what is the size of the donations? Are smaller donations listed anywhere or are small donations not tracked anywhere? There is something very very fishy about this report. And finally, how many of these donations come from government workers (working with the military) that tend to lean democrat?

To KMichaels: Brandon’s comment and my response to his comment are in the “Comments” to: “Ron Paul’s 20 Billion on Military A.C. … ”

I don’t really know why Ron Paul seems to have a subscription to bogus facts. He often gives me the impression that he is listening to a different drummer that is marching inside his head. Much of what he says sounds familiar to me because I am old and it’s faithful a repeat of what leftists said in the early 70s. It’s as if he were either recycling or remembering. This is all speculation, as I said.

What is not speculation is that his entourage, his staff, lack rigor to an unusual extent.

I have a friend that is a Ron Paul supporter and he has been an active Republican player for years. When asked about specifics he repeats the Ron Paul canned answers but when I question him for details about what the source of the claims are he can never answer them. And he obviously never researched them himself. So he takes them at face value. And somebody pointed out that Ron Paul behaved much like Neville Chamberlain and this friend asked who was Neville Chamberlain. At that point I realized how out of touch he was on certain political issues.

KMichaels: I am not surprised. I threw out the statement that it’s a cult kind of hoping that I would be shown I was wrong. No such luck. See Brandon’ s intemperate response in “Commnents” to “Ron Paul’s 20 Billion…” (Brandon also goes by “Crackpot” and Crackshot” and both.) He is a big Paul follower and exceptionally articulate in general. When it comes to responding to a serious fact-based criticism of his hero, he acts like a six-year old who just mastered a bad word. THat’s what you would expect from cult followers.

I have two concerns: 1 Many of these guys are not Republicans at all. Many will betray us come election day and be proud of it. I fear, they will help re-elect Obama.

I think that you and I are not alone in drawing these same conclusions. Ron Paul supporters are not generally conservatives or Republicans. They are more fringe foolish and misinformed. Ron Paul’s only strength is that he has locked onto all the right buzzwords but seems to lack the spirit and substance of what those words are all about. He denies the responsibility part of our part in the world and acts as though life is only about feeding our own desires. The constitution does not specify our responsibility to others but the spirit of that is still present therein. Ron Paul would never have been a founding father, more like a floundering fair-weather tag-along.

In the west is all I care to say. In any case, keep up the good work. And BTW, if you could find an actual good source of real donation records regarding the military then that would sure put an end to Ron Paul’s ruse once and for all. Any idea where to look?

And speaking of cults: could you elaborate on your remark about “betrayal” at the polls?

Obama, by the way, is a much better option than the GOP’s candidates (save for Ron Paul), and I will happily vote for him over the Republican field. If there is one thing that threatens prosperous commercial republics, it is the desire for imperial ambitions.

No amount of moralizing has ever changed this fact. If you don’t believe me just ask a European.

Now just to be sure: you are saying that Ron Paul has NOT received more donations than any other candidate, right? I understand the technicalities, of course (always have too; still don’t care! It’s a great tactic and irrefutable to boot), but lets not get carried away with our imaginations gentleman…

Brandon: You replied yourself to your own question about “betrayal at the polls.” (You like Obama better than any of the real Republican candidates.) Ron Paul is masquerading as a Republican according to your own words. That’s dishonest, of course.

Indeed. Can you tell me where I can find the list of litanies that outlines what qualifies one for membership in the Republican cult?

One of the things that attracts young people to libertarianism is its combination of the best of the Right (laissez-faire capitalism) and the Left (anti-imperialism). The demographics of the exit polls should not cause you worry though: time is definitely on the side of the Republican cult.